TikToker Zaya Perysian claims she received a passport listing her as a male contrary to her gender identity.
The 22-year-old has over 4.9 million followers on TikTok, 288,000 on Instagram, and 145,000 on YouTube. She also shares content on OnlyFans. She explained in a TikTok post shared January 28 that instead of her sex being marked as “F” for female on the new passport she received, the State Department-issued document identified her as “M” for male.
Zaya shared that the explanation she was given stated that her sex was “corrected on her passport application.” The TikToker noted she previously had a passport before her transition that identified her as male. She claimed that the notice she received about her latest passport suggested that the new document was intentionally issued reflecting what the government had on record regarding her sex.
“All my other documents have been updated to female, and I have been surgically updated to female,” Zaya said. “I have undergone my full medical transition. There is nothing about me anymore that represents male on the exterior, whatsoever. The only thing that them denying to put female on my passport does is put me in danger while traveling… They are only doing this to scare people like me because they don’t want us in public life…”
The trans influencer said she would “obviously” be taking legal action about the passport matter. She argued that the refusal of her passport update to reflect her transition violated her rights “as an American citizen.”
What Else Is There To Know About Sex Identifiers On Passports?
Zaya said her sex marker was listed as male “because of Donald Trump.”
In a follow-up video, the TikToker said that she has received tons of transphobic messages and comments after making her passport discrepancy public. In that second video, she explained that shortly after Trump took office, she made an appointment to have her passport updated to reflect her sex as female. Zaya said that she hoped her passport application would be processed before Trump’s new policies on sex marker updates and requests for passports went into effect.
On January 20, the newly inaugurated president — serving his second term — signed an executive order declaring that only two genders would be officially recognized by his administration: male and female.
The State Department has since confirmed that it has stopped processing passport applications and update requests listing “X” as the sex identifier instead of male or female.
